(Mar 02, 2008) On February 4, 2008, Yara, a female financial consultant for a company in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was arrested by agents of the official Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Her crime was being in a Starbucks café with a male colleague while waiting for the electric power to be restored to their offices located in the same building. Yara was quoted as saying she spent several hours in prison and was strip-searched, prevented from contacting her husband, and ordered to sign a confession that she was in a state of seclusion with a man who was not related to her. (Coffee with Colleague Lands Woman in Trouble, ARABNEWS, Feb. 5, 2008.)

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